The Log | School News

Top Conservation Science Students Gather at Duke

More than 100 college students from North, Central and South America took part in the 2005 Student Conference on Conservation Science, held for the first time this spring at Duke University.

The conference aimed to overcome the geographic and economic barriers that separate students to create a hemispherewide network of future conservation scientists, said Luke Dollar, a doctoral student at Nicholas School who spearheaded the event.

“We brought together Americas’ next generation of environmental leaders to share our findings, broaden our horizons and form professional friendships that can lead to future collaborations.”

The Nicholas School hosted and co-sponsored the event. Sponsorships by the Occidental Petroleum Corp. funded full scholarships that enabled students from Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and other developing countries to attend and present at the conference, and the Ford Foundation provided travel funds.

Presentation topics included forest fragmentation, endangered and threatened species, invasive species, coral reef conservation, marine fisheries, remote sensing technologies and conservation policy and management.

In addition to student presentations, the conference featured lectures by five of conservation science’s biggest names: Paul Ehrlich, director of Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology; Stuart L. Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at the Nicholas School; Daniel Simberloff, director of the University of Tennessee’s Institute for Biological Invasions; John Terborgh, James B. Duke Professor of Environmental Science at the Nicholas School and director of Duke’s Center for Tropical Conservation; and David Wilcove, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University.

Plans are under way to bring the conference to Duke again in March 2006.